The read-only database is an alternative to Sharing notes. Although the share functionality works pretty well to publish pages to the Internet in a wiki, blog-like format it does not offer the full functionality behind Trilium (such as the advanced Search or the interactivity behind Collections or the various Note Types).

When the database is in read-only mode, the Trilium application can be used as normal, but editing is disabled and changes are made in-memory only.

What it does

• All notes are read-only, without the possibility of editing them.
• Features that would normally alter the database such as the list of recent notes are disabled.

Limitations

• Some features might “slip through” and still end up creating a note, for example.
  • However, the database is still read-only, so all modifications will be reset if the server is restarted.
  • Whenever this occurs, ERROR: read-only DB ignored will be shown in the logs.

Setting a database as read-only

First, make sure the database is initialized (e.g. the first set up is complete). Then modify the config.ini by looking for the [General] section and adding a new readOnly field:

[General]
readOnly=true

If your server is already running, restart it to apply the changes.

Similarly, to disable read-only remove the line or set it to false.